Zr<  Aljftsff* 


EFFICIENT  PHILANTHROPY 


Extracts  from  an  Address  by 

GEORGE  HODGES,  D.D. 

Dean  of  the  Episcopal  Theological  School  of  Cambridge,  Mass. 


Delivered  at  the 

Annual  Meetings  of  the  Associated  Charities  of 
Columbus,  O.,  and  Pittsburgh,  Pa. 


Published  by  the 

Exchange  Branch  of  Charity  Organization  Societies 

Room  613,  105  East  22d  Street,  New  York  City  • 

1911 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


https://archive.org/details/efficientphilantOOhodg 


*6nNVr\fc>  r 


/ 


EFFICIENT  PHILANTHROPY 


By  George  Hodges,  D.  D. 


Two  persons  are  involved  in  every  philanthropic  transaction: 
one  the  giver,  the  other  the  receiver.  It  follows  that  there  are  two 
kinds  of  philanthropy  according  as  the  emphasis  is  put  upon  one  or 
the  other  of  these  two.  When  the  main  thought  is  for  the  giver,  it 
is  subjective  philanthropy.  When  the  main  thought  rests  upon  the 
receiver,  it  is  objective  philanthropy. 


SUBJECTIVE  PHILANTHROPY. 


The  motto  of  subjective  philanthropy  is,  “The  Lord  loveth  a 
cheerful  giver.”  The  only  requirement  is  to  be  cheerful  when  we 
give.  If  we  are,  we  will  have  an  immediate  reward:  the  Lord  will 
love  us.  We  can  never  get  along  without  the  subjective  element; 
f  we  can  never  put  that  splendid  saying  out  of  mind.  It  is  sub¬ 
jective  philanthropy  which  is  glorified  in  Lowell’s  poem  of  Sir  Laun- 
fal.  This  'gallant  knight  starts  out  from  his  castle  seeking  the 
Holy  Grail,  and  as  he  rides  out  of  the  gate,  he  sees  a  beggar  sitting 
by  the  roadside  and  flings  him  a  piece  of  gold;  he  rides  on,  and 
after  many  years  he  comes  back  from  a  fruitless  quest,  a  broken 
man,  and  there,  in  the  same  place  by  the  same  roadside,  sits  the 
same  beggar.  This  time  Sir  Launfal,  who  has  no  piece  of  gold  to 
fling,  whose  only  possession  is  a  crust,  sits  down  beside  this  poor 
man,  beggar  with  beggar,  and  shares  his  crust  with  him.  Then 
there  is  a  shining  vision  and  Sir  Launfal  is  blessed.  That  is  the 
point  of  the  story,  that  the  giver  is  blessed. 

Subjective  philanthropy  is  also  glorified  in  the  miracle  of  St. 
Martin.  St.  Martin  is  riding  along  a  country  road  in  France,  and 
he  sees  a  beggar  without  a  coat,  who,  kneeling  by  the  wayside, 
holds  out  his  hand  for  alms.  Martin’s  heart  is  touched.  He  takes 
off  his  own  handsome  cloak,  severs  it  with  his  sword  and  gives  half 
to  the  beggar.  Then  in  a  shining  vision  St.  Martin  beholds  the 
Master  of  the  Soul  in  paradise  wearing  half  of  his  cloak,  and  St. 
Martin  is  blessed.  Again,  the  point  of  the  story  is  that  the  giver  is 
blessed. 


OBJECTIVE  PHILANTHROPY. 


But  the  new  philanthropy  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  who  began 
this  movement  was  equally  interested  in  the  receiver  of  the  gift. 


3 


It  began  to  ask  what  became  of  when  it  left  the  good  hand 

of  the  giver.  It  insisted  that  the  gift  should  be  measured  not  only 
by  the  love  that  dictated  it,  but  by  the  actual  amount  of  good  that 
it  did ;  that  it  should  be  judged  by  its  practical  efficiency. 

The  motto  of  objective  philanthropy  is,  “He  took  him  by  the 
hand  and  lifted  him  up.”  The  man  had  been  down,  but  when  the 
Lord  passed  by  and  had  done  His  deed  of  benefaction,  that  man  was 
on  his  feet. 


The  secretary  of  an  Associated  Charities  once  told  of  a  needy 
family  that  had  been  visited  by  thirty-six  different  persons,  not 
one  of  whom  knew  of  the  help  being  given  by  the  others.  If  these 
thirty-six  people  joining  together  had  worked  in  concert,  planning 
how  to  rescue  this  family  and  putting  all  their  small  means  to¬ 
gether,  they  would  have  rescued  the  family.  But  when  all  these 
thirty-six  were  through,  the  family  was  left  in  the  same  condition. 

So  objective  philanthropy  adds  another  canto  to  the  story  of 
Sir  Launfal.  Sir  Launfal’s  soul  is  filled  with  benediction  and  he 
makes  up  his  mind  that  he  will  get  that  blessing  every  day  he  lives. 
So  he  gives  out  word  that  anybody  who  comes  to  his  castle  gate 
shall  receive  not  a  crust  but  a  loaf  of  bread  and  something  to  drink 
along  with  it.  The  next  day  two  come  and  the  next  day  ten  or 
fifteen,  until  by  and  by  every  honest  farmer  in  the  countryside  has 
found  out  that  he  does  not  need  to  work;  all  he  has  to  do  is  to  go 
to  Sir  Launfal’s  gate  and  be  fed.  Sir  Launfal’s  soul  is  abundantly 
blessed,  but  all  the  honest  farmers  have  turned  beggars  and  the 
countryside  is  cursed. 

And  objective  philanthropy  adds  another  chapter  to  the  story 
of  St.  Martin.  St.  Martin  rides  out  the  next  morning  and  presently 
he  meets  another  beggar  who  has  no  coat.  Remembering  the  beau¬ 
tiful  vision,  St.  Martin  takes  off  the  half  of  the  coat  that  he  has 
left  and  bestows  it  upon  this  beggar  and  rides  on.  But  this  man, 
instead  of  being  the  disguised  Christ,  is  a  disguised  rascal  who  has 
deserted  his  wife  and  six  children,  and  who  has  no  coat  because  he 
sold  the  one  he  had  for  drink.  He  proceeds  to  take  St.  Martin’s 
half-of-a-coat  and  pawn  that  for  more  drink,  so  that  St.  Martin 
as  a  result  has  done  more  harm  than  good. 

Now,  what  objective  philanthropy  insists  on  is  that  the  deed 
shall  be  estimated  by  its  effects,  that  the  benefaction  shall  be 
judged  according  to  the  actual  benefit  which  it  confers.  There  is  not 
any  true  service — no  matter  how  much  love  there  may  be  in  it — 
there  is  not  any  true  service  unless  it  serves.  That  is  objective 
philanthropy;  that  is  efficient  philanthropy.  The  association  in  this 
country  which  stands  conspicuously  for  that  sort  of  benefaction  is 
the  Associated  Charities. 


4 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  FUNCTION  OF  THE  ASSOCIATED  CHARITIES. 

The  distinctive  function  of  the  Associated  Charities  is  to  give 
advice.  That  may  seem  a  cheap  thing  to  give,  but  when  you  come 
to  think  about  it,  good  advice  is  not  so  cheap  after  all.  The 
Associated  Charities  came  upon  the  scene  some  thirty-five  years  ago 
and  found  that  there  was  need  of  specialization  in  charity  as  well  as 
in  other  things.  The  relief  side  of  philanthropy  seemed  to  be  fairly 
well  attended  to.  It  was  not  very  efficiently  done,  though  it  was  very 
generously  done.  The  situation  was  similar  to  that  in  the  old  days 
when  there  were  no  professional  fire  companies,  but  every  gentleman 
had  a  leather  bucket  hanging  in  his  hall  at  home,  with  his  name 
elaborately  emblazoned  upon  it.  When  the  fire  bells  rang,  he  ran 
home,  got  his  bucket,  and  with  all  the  other  neighbors  went  to  the 
fire.  They  had  a  beautiful  time,  and  gradually  the  fire  went  out. 
But  now  there  is  a  system;  there  is  a  company  of  men  who  are 
trained  to  put  out  fires. 

The  people  who  organized  the  Associated  Charities  felt  that 
there  ought  to  be  a  company  trained  for  some  kind  of  service  in 
philanthropy.  They  felt  that  the  great  thing  was  not  so  much  to 
give  material  relief  as  to  give  advice.  They  gave  relief  still,  but 
instead  of  accumulating  a  great  store  of  material  that  they  could 
hand  out  to  those  that  were  needy,  they  took  the  position  of  showing 
the  needy  where  to  go;  thus  bringing  about  a  connection  between 
the  persons  whose  needs  were  unknown  on  the  one  hand  and  the 
place  where  those  needs  could  be  supplied  on  the  other  hand.  Under 
the  conditions  of  disorder  and  confusion  then  existing,  it  was  per¬ 
fectly  natural  that  persons  with  modest  spirits  and  a  great  shrinking 
from  asking  for  anything  would  be  overlooked;  that  Aquila  and 
Priscilla,  excellent  and  godly  persons  in  poverty,  should  be  an¬ 
hungered,  while  Ananias  and  Sapphira  should  be  abundantly  sup¬ 
plied.  And  accordingly  they  felt  that  some  system  was  needed  in 
ministering  to  the  poor,  and  they  decided  that  the  best  thing  they 
could  offer  was  skilled  advice. 


THE  VALUE  OF  TRAINED  SERVICE. 

When  we  say  that  the  distinctive  function  of  the  Associated 
Charities  is  to  give  advice,  we  clear  away,  I  think,  a  very  general 
misunderstanding.  When  people  look  at  the  reports  of  the  Associated 
Charities,  they  see  that  a  considerable  amount  of  money  is  expended 
every  year  for  office  expenses  and  salaries,  and  that  only  a  small 
amount  of  money  goes  for  relief.  Then  they  say,  “Well,  I  don’t 
propose  to  give  my  money  to  any  such  organization  as  that.  I  am 
not  going  to  give  my  money  to  support  people  at  the  office  of  the 


5 


Associated  Charities.  What  I  want  is  to  help  the  poor.”  But  the 
truth  is  that  judicious  and  timely  advice  is  the  most  helpful  thing 
you  can  give,  and  that  the  art  of  helping  is  intimately  akin  to  the  art 
of  healing. 

The  difference  between  the  Associated  Charities  and  the  Relief 
Association  is  like  that  between  the  doctor’s  office  and  the  drug  store. 
You  do  not  expect  to  carry  away  from  the  doctor’s  office  something 
in  a  basket  or  in  a  brown  paper  parcel :  you  expect  to  get  counsel 
and  advice,  and  perhaps  a  prescription  that  you  may  take  to  the 
drug  store.  But  the  experienced  doctor  in  making  that  prescription 
takes  pains  to  prescribe  as  few  drugs  as  he  can.  He  is  afraid  of 
getting  people  into  the  drug  habit.  And  the  wise  philanthropist 
is  just  as  afraid  of  getting  people  into  the  alms  habit,  which  is  closely 
akin  to  the  morphine  habit  in  that  it  deprives  people  of  self-respect. 

Now,  in  order  to  give  advice,  we  must  have  persons  who  are 
competent  to  give  that  advice,  and  we  must  ask  two  things  of  them — 
training  and  time.  We  ask  them  to  undergo  an  extensive  prepara¬ 
tion  in  order  that  they  may  be  of  service  to  us,  may  give  us  advice 
that  is  worth  something.  And  then  we  ask  them  to  give  all  their 
time  and  their  work  to  the  community.  That  is  the  reason  for  the 
salaries.  If  you  want  to,  you  can  get  any  amount  of  free  advice, 
such  as  it  is.  If  you  are  sick,  any  kind-hearted  old  woman  will 
come  in  and  look  after  you  in  that  fashion.  If  you  want  to  be  nursed 
properly,  you  will  have  to  get  a  trained  nurse,  and  pay  $21  a  week 
for  her  services.  You  can  get  advice  on  your  legal  affairs  from  any 
one  you  please,  but  if  you  are  wise  you  search  for  somebody  who  is 
trained.  And  the  thing  for  which  you  pay  the  lawyer  is  nothing 
material  at  all.  It  is  solely  for  his  counsel,  for  showing  you  how 
to  get  out  of  hard  places  or  how  to  get  other  people  into  them.  I 
think  that  lawyer  was  quite  within  the  limits  of  his  proper  charge 
who  set  down  in  his  bill  this,  that  and  the  other  thing,  and  then 
added,  “for  lying  awake  at  night  thinking  about  your  case,  one 
hundred  dollars.”  And  the  bill  was  paid.  So  when  you  see  these 
figures  for  the  office  expenses  of  the  Associated  Charities,  you  un¬ 
derstand  that  you  are  paying  for  economic  physicians ;  you  are  paying 
for  good  advice;  you  are  paying  for  the  most  expensive  and  at  the 
same  time  the  most  necessary  thing  that  any  community  can  have. 

FIRST  NECESSITY,  KNOWLEDGE. 

In  order  to  give  economic  advice,  three  things  are  necessary. 
The  first  is  knowledge,  the  second  is  judgment,  and  the  third  is 
sympathy.  First  you  must  have  knowledge,  and  the  beginning  of 
knowledge  is  the  acquirement  of  facts.  Accordingly,  the  physician 
begins  his  treatment  of  the  case  by  asking  questions  so  that  he  may 
know  what  is  the  matter  and  be  able  to  deal  not  with  the  superficial 

6 


symptoms,  but  with  the  disease.  And  the  social  worker  begins  in 
the  same  way  with  questions  to  find  out  what  is  the  matter.  These 
are  not  the  questions  of  a  detective  trying  to  find  out  who  is  worthy 
and  who  is  unworthy.  In  the  eyes  of  a  charity  worker,  there  is  no 
unworthy  person,  not  one,  nobody  who  is  unworthy  of  being  helped ; 
just  as  in  the  eyes  of  the  physician  there  is  no  one  who  is  unworthy 
of  being  cured. 

But  the  question  is  how  to  deal  with  the  case,  and  the  only 
answer  to  that  question  is,  by  acquiring  facts  concerning  that  case. 
Then  those  facts  are  recorded.  Some  people  think  those  records  are 
dreadful  things.  They  say,  “If  the  family  of  a  friend  of  mine  should 
get  their  names  on  the  charity  list,  they  would  be  set  down  in  the  roll 
of  paupers.”  This  is  no  more  true  than  that  the  presence  of  your 
name  on  some  doctor’s  book  enrolls  you  in  his  list  of  invalids.  And 
these  records  in  the  office  of  the  Associated  Charities  are  as  sacred 
as  the  records  in  the  office  of  the  doctor.  The  first  thing  the  doctor 
does  when  he  comes  back  from  your  sick  chamber  is  to  put  down  in  a 
book  the  facts  about  your  case,  so  that  he  may  refresh  his  mind  when 
he  goes  again.  There  they  are  in  his  book,  and  there  in  his  book 
are  the  economic  facts  about  persons  who  are  brought  to  the 
attention  of  the  economic  doctor,  for  the  same  purpose  and  under  the 
same  sacred  secrecy.  The  initial  thing  is  to  find  out  what  the 
people  need.  Without  knowing  the  needs  of  the  people,  one  is  in 
the  same  condition  of  hopeless  confusion  as  the  man  who  maintains 
that  the  light  of  the  moon  is  really  stronger  than  the  light  of  the  sun, 
because  the  moon  shines  in  the  night  when  it  is  dark  and  the  sun 
shines  in  the  day-time  when  it  is  light  anyhow. 

The  beginning,  then,  of  knowledge  is  the  accumulation  of  facts. 
And  next  comes  the  arrangement  of  facts,  for  unless  the  facts  are  set 
down  in  their  logical  places  they  may  not  tell  a  true  story.  They 
may  be  like  the  placard  on  the  breast  of  the  lame  soldier,  on  which 
was  inscribed,  “One  leg,  four  wounds,  five  children.  Total  ten.” 

The  facts,  then,  must  be  arranged  so  that  they  may  be  con¬ 
sulted;  so  that  others  who  are  concerned  with  a  certain  family 
may  know  what  ought  to  be  known  about  that  family  before  they 
begin  to  help  them.  The  doctors  do  not  need  to  do  this  because  when 
anybody  is  sick  he  is  not  likely  to  send  for  more  than  one  doctor 
unless  he  is  very  rich.  But  when  people  are  very  poor,  the  number 
of  the  economic  doctors  for  whom  they  may  send  knows  no  limit. 
For  this  reason  it  is  desirable  when  a  needy  family  comes  to  our 
attention  to  find  out  what  has  already  been  done.  Accordingly  the 
office  of  the  Associated  Charities  is  described  as  a  clearing  house 
of  facts,  so  that  whenever  need  in  a  family  arises,  it  may  be  intelli¬ 
gently  met,  and  so  that  we  may  avoid  the  ills  that  come  when  many 
people  ignorant  of  each  others’  existence  try  to  deal  with  the  same 
case. 


7 


( ■■ 


We  also  bring  the  facts  together  in  order  that  by  assembling 
them  we  may  acquaint  ourselves  with  the  whole  situation.  No 
wise  commander  will  go  to  war  without  a  map;  and  no  social 
worker  will  undertake  any  serious  work  in  a  community  without 
some  wide  knowledge  of  the  community.  Otherwise,  he  is  working 
in  the  dark. 

You  cannot  carry  on  any  large  concern,  even  in  philanthropy, 
without  organization.  And  in  many  cities  what  we  call  the  Asso¬ 
ciated  Charities  was  begun  with  the  name  “Charity  Organization 
Society/’  that  it  might  introduce  the  element  of  order  into  the  situ¬ 
ation. 


AFTER  KNOWLEDGE,  JUDGMENT. 

The  second  need  is  judgment.  Judgment  means  interpretation 
of  the  facts  and  knowledge  of  what  to  do  with  them  after  you  have 
them  interpreted.  To  some  persons  that  knowledge,  that  judgment, 
come  by  intuition.  They  perceive  by  a  kind  of  instinct  how  to  deal 
with  the  troubles  of  the  needy ;  but  those  persons  are  few.  For  most 
people,  the  only  way  to  deal  intelligently,  and  therefore  efficiently, 
with  a  case  of  need  is  to  go  through  a  course  of  preparation  whereby, 
in  the  first  place,  they  shall  gain  a  clear  understanding  of  certain 
great,  proved  principles,  and  then  a  knowledge  of  the  way  in  which 
those  principles  are  to  be  brought  into  practice. 

Great  confusion  is  brought  into  the  whole  field  of  philanthropy 
by  the  alacrity  with  which  inexperienced  and  incompetent  persons 
attack  the  most  complicated  economic  cases.  There  are  in  all  com¬ 
munities  very  simple  cases.  There  are  persons  whom  you  have 
known  for  many  years,  with  all  of  whose  circumstances  you  are 
familiar,  whose  children  you  can  call  by  their  Christian  names  and 
to  whom  you  can  minister  as  a  friend,  without  doing  them  any  very 
serious  harm.  But  when  you  find  an  unknown  person  standing  on 
your  front  steps,  you  have  there  a  complicated,  economic  case.  The 
only  thing  to  do  under  these  circumstances  is  to  send  that  person 
where  he  will  get  competent  treatment.  Of  course,  I  know  that 
there  are  sentences  of  the  Bible  which  seem  to  contradict  that  ap¬ 
parently  hard-hearted  proceeding:  “Give,  and  it  shall  be  given  unto 
you.”  But  we  do  not  apply  that  to  the  cases  of  our  children,  nor 
to  the  cases  of  sick  persons  who  are  hungry  for  something  they 
ought  not  to  have.  “I  was  anhungered  and  ye  gave  me  no  meat; 
I  was  thirsty  and  ye  gave  me  no  drink.”  Yes,  we  may  be  afraid 
of  being  confronted  by  those  voices  at  the  last  great  day,  but  there 
is  another  line  of  persons  who  may  point  their  fingers  at  us,  bring¬ 
ing  more  terror  to  our  souls,  and  say,  “I  was  very  hungry  and  ye 
gave  me  meat  which  I  ought  not  to  have  had.  I  was  thirsty,  and 
ye  gave  me  money  to  buy  drink.”  For  you  will  remember  in  the 

8 


story  of  the  prodigal  son  that  the  point  at  which  the  prodigal  son 
comes  to  himself  and  returns  to  his  father,  is  where  no  man  gave 
unto  him.  If  there  had  been  some  soft-hearted  person  with  a  basket 
of  gold  pieces  at  that  moment,  the  prodigal  son  would  never  have 
gone  back  to  his  father. 

Now,  no  matter  who  the  man  is  who  appears  as  an  unknown  ap¬ 
plicant  for  alms  at  your  door,  he  is  a  complicated  case,  and  you  are  in 
the  same  position  in  relation  to  him  that  you  would  be  if  some  mis¬ 
erable  person  should  knock  at  your  door  and  say,  “I  am  very  sorry 
to  say  that  I  am  in  great  need.  I  am  suffering  from  a  severe  case 
of  pneumonia.”  You  are  very  sorry  for  the  poor  man  and  you  say, 
“My  good  man,  come  in  the  house ;”  you  bring  him  in  and  make  him 
sit  down  in  the  hall ;  you  sit  down  beside  him  and  you  say,  “Now  tell 
me  all  about  it.”  After  he  has  told  his  story,  to  which  you  listen  with 
a  heart  full  of  compassion,  you  go  upstairs  and  bring  down  a  little 
bottle  of  sugared  pellets,  and  pouring  eight  of  them  into  his  extended 
palm,  you  say,  “There,  my  friend,  is  some  aconite,”  and  then  you 
send  the  man  upon  his  way.  That  is  inconsiderate  philanthropy. 
You  have  satisfied,  after  a  fashion,  the  impulses  of  a  compassionate 
nature,  but  you  haven’t  done  a  thing  for  the  man.  You  have  a  rain¬ 
bow  in  your  soul,  and  he  has  a  pain  in  his  lungs  just  as  he  had  before. 
What  we  want  is  considerate  philanthropy,  in  which  we  shall  not  be 
looking  for  rainbows  in  our  own  souls  so  much  as  for  practical  re¬ 
sults  of  a  good  kind  in  the  lives  of  our  neighbors. 


CONSIDERATE  PHILANTHROPY. 

The  thing  to  do  is  to  say  to  this  man,  “My  good  man,  you  need 
a  doctor;  that  is  what  you  need.  I  can’t  do  anything  for  you  be¬ 
cause  I  don’t  know  enough,  but  you’ll  find  a  doctor  at  such  and  such 
a  number.  You  go  there  and  he’ll  give  you  what  you  need.”  That  is 
all  very  plain.  Now,  there  is  another  knock  at  the  door  and  another 
man  on  the  step ;  he  tells  a  more  familiar  story,  and  you  proceed  to 
minister  to  him  after  either  a  wise  or  a  foolish  fashion.  This  man 
who  stands  upon  your  step  telling  a  tale  of  poverty  is  a  very  difficult 
case;  just  as  difficult  economically  as  the  man  with  pneumonia  is 
difficult  medically.  If  he  were  not  a  difficult  case  he  would  not  be 
there.  Again  you  must  say,  “My  friend,  I  can’t  do  anything  for 
you  because  I  don’t  know  enough,  but  you  need  to  go  where  you 
can  get  a  doctor,  an  economic  doctor,  who  can  look  up  your  case 
and  give  you  the  two  things  that  you  need :  care  and  continued 
interest.  Go  where  your  case  can  be  looked  into  and  somebody 
can  find  out  what  is  really  the  matter  with  you.  Then  when  the 
difficulty  is  found,  you  can  be  followed  up  and  dealt  with  until  you 
can  be  made  a  new  man  and  you  won’t  have  to  go  begging  in  this 
fashion.”  Now  that  is  not  impulsive  philanthropy,  but  it  is  consider- 


9 


\\ 


ate  philanthropy.  It  is  considerate  philanthropy  because  you  are 
not  thinking  about  yourself.  It  takes  a  good  deal  of  nerve,  but  that 
is  the  plain,  sensible  and  efficient  thing  to  do. 


SYMPATHY. 

The  next  thing  needed  in  order  to  give  good,  economic  advice, 
after  knowledge  and  after  judgment,  is  sympathy.  Some  people 
think  that  the  last  place  to  go  for  sympathy  is  the  office  of  the 
Associated  Charities.  They  have  an  idea  that  the  office  of  the  Asso¬ 
ciated  Charities  is  a  place  for  the  distribution  of  the  milk  of  human 
kindness  sterilized.  But  whenever  anyone  has  a  just  complaint  of 
this  kind  to  make  against  the  Charities  office,  there  are  two  things 
to  be  said.  One  is  that  objective  philanthropy  is  a  reaction  from 
the  old  sentimental  kind.  The  trouble  with  reactions  is  that  they  are 
always  in  danger  of  going  too  far,  and  you  will  find  some  people  who 
will  be  conscientiously  over-severe  in  order  to  avoid  being  over-ten¬ 
der-hearted.  The  other  trouble  with  the  Associated  Charities  is 
just  the  trouble  with  the  ministry,  the  source  of  supply.  People  talk 
about  the  ministry  and  its  shortcomings  without  remembering  that 
the  only  source  from  which  to  get  ministers  is  the  ranks  of  the  lay¬ 
men.  They  have  to  come  out  of  the  community.  If  we  could  make 
them  out  of  angels  and  archangels,  that  would  be  splendid,  but  we 
have  to  take  plain  people  and  make  them  into  ministers.  The  same 
thing  is  true  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Associated  Charities.  They 
come  right  out  of  the  community,  which  means  that  they  are  all 
liable  to  make  mistakes,  the  same  as  we.  When  they  do,  let  us  re¬ 
member  the  everlasting  human  fact  that  mistakes  must  be  made, 
and  may  be  made  by  those  who  have  the  best  intentions. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  ORGANIZED  CHARITY. 

Then,  coming  to  the  heart  of  the  matter,  organized  charity  is 
tender-hearted  and  fraternal  and  sympathetic  and  compassionate  and 
considerate,  as  I  said,  but  mainly  considerate,  with  the  consideration 
of  the  physician  who  is  caring  for  the  best  interests  of  his  patient. 
The  doctor  hurts  because  he  has  to.  The  hungry  patient  looks  up  and 
asks  for  food,  and  the  doctor  says  he  cannot  have  it  because  he  knows 
he  ought  not  to  have  it.  The  doctor  has  a  considerate  philanthropy, 
and  that  is  the  kind  of  philanthropy  the  Associated  Charities  has.  We 
cannot  expect  all  people  to  appreciate  this.  I  wish  we  all  did  like  the 
things  that  are  for  our  good ;  the  world  would  be  a  great  deal  better  if 
we  did,  but  we  do  not.  And  so  long  as  this  is  true  you  are  bound  to 
find  people  who  have  been  dealt  with  out  of  consideration  for  their 
best  interests,  and  who  have  not  appreciated  it ;  we  cannot  expect  them 
to  appreciate  it.  Back  of  it  all,  however,  is  the  fact  that  the  great 


TO 


principle  of  the  Associated  Charities  is  expressed  in  the  motto,  “Not 
alms,  but  a  friend/'  “Not  alms” — that  is,  not  giving  little  doles  at 
doors  or  other  places,  because  those  simple  gifts  are  not  enough  to 
produce  any  real  effect.  If  you  give  doles,  the  result  is  the  same 
as  if  a  doctor  were  to  help  his  patients  along  so  that  they  would  all  be 
just  about  so  sick,  and  none  of  them  would  be  getting  well.  The 
test  of  your  own  philanthropy  is  its  result  measured  by  that  standard. 
If  the  people  whom  you  are  helping  are  just  about  as  poor  at  the 
end  of  the  year  as  they  are  at  the  beginning,  then  you  are  failing. 

The  purpose  of  true  almsgiving  is  to  follow  the  Great  Word, 
“He  took  him  by  the  hand  and  lifted  him  up.” 

The  giving  of  alms  in  these  small  doles  not  only  accomplishes 
no  true  effect,  but  also  has  a  very  bad  negative  effect  because  it  takes 
people  away  from  honest  work  and  undermines  their  self-respect. 
A  man  in  Brooklyn  dropped  his  cap  on  the  pavement,  and  before 
he  had  time  to  pick  it  up  somebody  dropped  a  dime  in  it.  That  man 
found  that  he  didn’t  need  to  work;  the  people  would  pay  his  board 
and  lodging.  A  family  in  Philadelphia  had  turkeys  sent  to  them  on 
Thanksgiving  day,  and  the  two  able-bodied  men  quit  working.  Some¬ 
body  says,  “These  poor  little  children  you  see  shivering  at  the  street 
corners — you  should  give  them  something.”  Yes,  if  you  want  to  keep 
these  children  shivering  at  the  corners,  give  them  something,  because 
their  parents  will  find  out  that  the  colder  the  weather  and  the  more 
they  shiver,  the  better  for  the  family  treasury.  But  if,  for  a  week, 
the  whole  population  passes  by  and  does  not  give  the  children  a  cent, 
there  is  an  end  of  that  kind  of  martyrdom  on  the  part  of  those  chil¬ 
dren.  “Not  alms,  but  a  friend.”  The  ideal  is  that  every  needy  family 
shall  have  its  own  friend  who  has  been  trained  to  do  good  by  experi¬ 
enced  persons  in  the  office  of  the  Associated  Charities. 

Following  out  this  process  of  giving  wise  advice,  the  Associated 
Charities  accomplishes  results;  results  in  the  large  social  betterment 
of  the  community.  Every  catastrophe  like  an  earthquake  or  a  fire 
or  flood  brings  to  the  attention  of  us  all  the  fact  that  you  cannot 
minister  to  such  conditions  without  system.  That  is  perfectly  plain, 
but  the  conditions  disclosed  by  the  catastrophe  exist  in  city  after  city 
every  day  we  live,  and  call  with  the  same  imperative  demand  for 
order,  system,  organization,  and  the  application  of  common  sense  in 
dealing  with  them.  That  is  what  the  Associated  Charities  gives  to 
the  community  at  large  and  to  the  needy  individual.  It  acts  as  a 
guide  to  the  sources  of  relief,  of  care,  of  protection,  of  employment. 
To  the  citizen  who  desires  to  use  the  means  at  his  disposal  for  the 
good  of  others,  the  Associated  Charities  tells  how  he  can  use  that 
money  without  putting  it  to  waste ;  how  he  can  place  it  where  it  will 
do  the  most  good.  And  if  the  Associated  Charities  should  follow  the 
example  of  the  patent-medicine  doctors  of  an  early  date  and  show 
results  labeled  “Before  and  After” — a  family  before  they  undertook 


3 


12  062007825 


\ 

the  treatment,  and  the  family  afterwards  standing  on  their  feet — 
everybody  would  be  convinced  of  the  necessity  of  this  effective 
service.  Such  things  the  Associated  Charities  cannot  tell  because 
they  are  sacredly  confidential ;  but  work  like  that  is  being  done  every 
day,  and  the  result  is  the  slow  but  steady  abolition  of  poverty. 

Peter  and  John  in  the  old  story  go  up  to  the  temple  at  the  hour 
of  prayer,  and  find  a  beggar  lying  at  the  gate.  At  once  they  proceed 
to  help  the  man.  He  has  been  lying  there  by  the  gate  week  after 
week  and  kind-hearted  persons  who  come  by  have  given  him  their 
dole,  but  still  he  lies  there.  Peter  and  John  go  straight  to  the  cause 
of  the  man’s  poverty.  He  is  lame,  and  they  say,  “Stand  up  and 
walk,”  and  that  they  say  in  the  name  of  the  Supreme  Friend.  They 
took  hold  of  the  man  and  lifted  him  up,  and  from  that  day  he 
begged  no  more;  that  is,  their  philanthropy  went  to  the  heart  of  the 
matter.  They  sought  out  the  cause  of  the  man’s  poverty  and  cured 
that.  That  is  what  organized  charity  is  organized  to  do,  to  go  to 
the  root  of  things,  to  help  men,  as  Benjamin  Franklin  said,  “not 
so  much  in  their  poverty  as  out  of  their  poverty;”  to  make  it  so 
that  they  should  beg  no  more. 

That  is  efficient  philanthropy.  It  considers  the  receiver  as  well 
as  the  giver.  What  the  Associated  Charities  asks  of  the  people 
of  the  city  is,  first,  financial  support,  in  order  that  you  may  have 
increasingly  in  the  midst  of  this  community  a  body  of  trained  per¬ 
sons  able  to  give  sound  economic  advice.  They  will  give  material 
assistance,  too,  where  it  is  needed,  and  immediately  when  it  is  needed, 
but  mainly,  they  will  help  people  to  help  themselves.  The  other 
thing  needed  is  the  personal  voluntary  services  of  friendly  visitors, 
going  out  under  the  direction  of  the  society  and  ministering  to  those 
who  are  in  peculiar  need.  By  these  two  means — by  material  support 
and  by  personal  service — you  will  be  bringing  the  city  so  much  nearer 
to  the  Kingdom  of  God. 


